Otherworldly Merchant

At around twilight, I was hungry. I went to the street to have some food. Before I entered the hotel, I bumped into a man rushing out. All the food I had brought back for Senior Shu was scattered on the ground. 

I was mad, but the man looked as though he had something very urgent to do. He didn’t even say sorry and left. 

“Where do you think you’re running to?!”

Senior Shu rushed downstairs. When he saw me, he was surprised. Then, he angrily yelled, “Kid, after him! Hurry up!”

I got it now. That man was a possible suspect. I gritted my teeth and chased after him. 

Senior Shu, is he the taming master?” I asked while running. 

When I bumped into him on the patio, I saw his face. Although he didn’t have a nice appearance, he didn’t give me a brutal feeling. In short, he didn’t look like a taming master to me. 

Senior Shu wore a dark face. His eyes kept tabs on the man running ahead of us. 

The sky was dark now, and there weren’t many people on the street to the suburbs. I felt something was strange.

I frowned and asked, “Senior Shu, don’t you feel that man’s strange?”

“Ah?” Senior Shu grunted skeptically. He halted. The other man also halted. He looked as though he was waiting for us.

I finally got it. “Senior Shu, he seems to be luring us somewhere! We didn’t bring anything with us. If we follow him, I’m afraid it won’t be safe.”

While talking, I got a message on my phone. I read the message and my heart sank. Instinctively, I clenched my fists. 

“What happened?”

“Baji said that another tomb on the mountain has been robbed!” I gritted my teeth. 

Senior Shu looked surprised. Then, he said resolutely, “We should get that man first.”

I nodded. Then, while Senior Shu was running ahead of me, I discreetly read the spell to beckon a spirit. Immediately, I asked the little ghost I’d invited to carry me away from this place. 

It wasn’t Baji who had sent me the message. It was from Senior Shu. He didn’t see me anywhere when he woke up, so he texted me to ask me where I was. 

After receiving the text, I understood the situation. The Senior Shu in front of me was fake. The taming master had impersonated him, and the despicable-looking man that was trying to lure me was a ghost or a low-ranking corpse the taming master was keeping.

His moves were stiff. When he ran, his limbs didn’t coordinate well. Previously, I was in a rush, so I didn’t notice these features. 

It wouldn’t be practical to send Senior Shu a text now. That was why I laid all of my hopes on a random wild ghost. 

Shortly after I read the spell, a little ghost came and took me away. Once Senior Shu’s figure disappeared from the view, I sighed in relief. 

But then, I found something was wrong. At this speed, it would take this little ghost only five minutes to take me back to the hotel. However, we’d been moving for twenty minutes already, and it hadn’t stopped. I smelled danger here. I grabbed the talismans in my pocket and coldly shouted, “Where do you want to take me?” 

As soon as I said that, the ghost turned to me. I finally saw its face. This ghost was wearing traditional Burmese clothes and had a few piercing studs on his brows. He was a Burmese ghost. 

I suddenly recognized that the ghost I had beckoned was probably prepared by the taming master. Senior Shu had told me that this taming master had the taming skills of the masters from the South Sea.  

The South Sea was the old collective name for Vietnam, Myanmar, and the other Southeast Asian countries. As this ghost was wearing Burmese clothes, the taming master was clearly from Myanmar. 

I was enraged. I took out a talisman and palmed it on the ghost. The ghost shivered then slowed down. 

Before I could heave a sigh of relief, the ghost became crazy. It started moving faster and faster. I tried a few more times and ended up using all of my talismans. Yet, the ghost was still running.

It seemed the taming master wanted to kill me tonight! I gave up struggling as I needed to save my energy. 

The only weapons I had now that could expel the evil spirit were the blood from the tip of my tongue and my fingers. And, I could invite some immortals. In a critical moment, I could invite Lu Dongbin to assist me. 

Half an hour later, the ghost finally stopped. Before I could land safely, the ghost fled. I fell from a height of two or three meters in midair. My back hit a rock. My throat felt hot, and I spat out a mouthful of blood. 

I endured the pain in my back and got up. I looked around and found myself in the middle of the playground in an abandoned school. 

In front of me was a row of seriously damaged classrooms. The building had three floors, and the red-painted slogan was still visible. The foot of the building was covered with grass while the roof was rickety with rusted steel pipes. The entire school looked pitch black except for the last room on the first floor which had flickering candlelight. 

The taming master’s in there!

I turned and saw that the gate of the school was also in that direction. Without thinking much, I wanted to seize this chance to run away. 

When I reached the gate, another one appeared in front of me, identical to the previous one. I took a deep breath and disbelievingly turned around. The gate I had just passed through turned out to be the one by the classrooms. 

“Damn it!” I cursed and unbuckled my belt. I pulled it out of my trousers and held it in my hand. With rage, I stormed toward the room with the candlelight. 

Not only could the taming master control the tamed corpse, but he could also assume someone else’s appearance. And now, he was controlling something that looked like an illusion maze. He sure was intimidating! I knew I had to engage in a fight with him to get out of here. Moreover, that dude did not seem to want to leave his room. 

When I got there, I noticed it was an office. I kicked the door open.

A tan-skinned man of around forty or fifty years old was sitting in the office. The man’s eyes sparkled maliciously as he admired something in his hand. I recognized it was a skin mask. 

“Appearance Shifting Technique?” Seeing the real taming master, I blurted out instinctively. 

He nodded, then pointed at a wooden stick next to him. He spoke with amusement. “This is what you have been chasing after.” 

“You’re quite something, aren’t you?” I wore a smile on the surface, but I quietly took a deep breath. He was much tougher than I had imagined. 

The taming master furiously snarled, “Every profession has its own rule. What do you and that old man like so much to disturb my business? You even killed my tamed corpses!” 

“Rule?” I sneered and said with disdain, “You unearthed other people’s tombs. Did you talk about the rule at that time? Moreover, a foreigner like you is robbing tombs in China. Any Chinese with a conscience wouldn’t accept that!” 

I knew this taming master was intimidating. To avoid a passive situation, I immediately kicked him as soon as I said that. 

It seemed the taming master had expected my attack. He swiftly took a step backward and knocked me to the ground. 

“Go die!” His face twisted evilly. He took out a Nepalese saber that was glowing in the light and aimed it right at my throat!